In October, Andrew Cuomo said something that sounded odd. He said he wasn't a politician.

Hmm, I thought. He sure seems like a politician, given that he is, you know, a twice-elected governor who is obviously angling to be president.

But what do I know? I've never been a politician, and maybe I really don't know what it means to be one. Perhaps the governor was right.

Nope.

There can be no doubt now. Conclusive proof that Cuomo is, in fact, a politician arrived as an email after Thursday's snowstorm. The subject line: "Governor Cuomo Helps Stranded Motorist on Sprain Brook Parkway."

Now, many ordinary Joes and Janes would stop to help a stranded motorist. You may have pushed a stuck car this winter. It is the decent and neighborly thing to do, the kind of simple act that keeps society civilized.

But I'm guessing you didn't issue a press release immediately after, because only a politician would think to do that. Only a politician would attempt to capitalize on a routine act of kindness. Only a politician would be so blatantly shameless and self-serving.

More Information

Of course, the email detailing the Westchester County rescue came with a link to photos, which were also posted to the governor's taxpayer-funded website.

The action shots show Cuomo, wearing cargo pants and weather-inappropriate shoes, doing not especially heroic things. In one, he has a knee in the snow as he hooks a tow line to a blue sedan. In another, he is apparently trying to push the stuck car.

That's when a normal human being would have yelled, "Hey dummy, put down the camera and help me push this stuck car!" But professional politicians are different. They see no point in doing something unless a camera is capturing it.

It's like a variation on the tree-in-the-forest philosophical quandary: If a governor pushes a stuck car out of snow and the masses never find out, did it really happen? Clearly, the answer is no.

After six years of watching Cuomo as governor, we know this: He reacts to snowstorms like a dog who has spotted a leash. He gets excited, frenetic even, and he dashes around telling the apparently obtuse citizens of New York that this snow stuff can be darn slippery and that planes might not leave on time.

Sadly, one New Yorker ignored the warnings and ventured out onto the Sprain Brook, forcing the governor and what appear to be state troopers to save the day.

Did the troopers need the governor's help? I think we know the answer to that question.

Did they want it? Ditto.

Looking at the photos of Cuomo battling the elements along the roadway, you could almost forget that just one day earlier he was giving a self-congratulatory speech within the warm confines of Schenectady's new casino, which was apparently as difficult to construct as an Egyptian pyramid.

"They said you can't do it, it's impossible," Cuomo told the crowd.

Who said that? Who are these unnamed people who are always telling the governor that reasonably achievable things can't be done? Why does he keep these gloomy naysayers around?

"It really is a dream come true," Cuomo said of the casino. "We would be talking about this project sometimes and I would just say, 'It's just too great. It's just too unbelievable that something this grand and powerful was going to happen.' But it did."

At which point, many in the crowd must have wondered if he was still talking about the casino or if he had inadvertently switched to a speech about the resurrection.

Cuomo spawns cynicism like stagnant water spawns mosquitoes, and so it was no surprise that there were immediate skeptics of the Great Sprain Brook Parkway Rescue. They noted that we had also been subjected to photos of the governor helping a stranded motorist last winter.

It kind of makes you wonder if the daring Democrat and his staffers drive around during snowstorms looking for stuck cars in need of gubernatorial help.

"There's one! Pull over!"

"No, governor. That car is just parked."

There's a trendy term for what occurred along the Sprain Brook on Thursday — fake news. And it doesn't say much about the state of journalism that the press release succeeded. Stories about Cuomo's rescue were reported statewide, with the once-proud New York Daily News even concluding that "Cuomo sprang to the aid of a stranded motorist."

Sprang? Sigh.

None of the reports I saw interviewed the motorist or the governor about the rescue. That's just as well, because we know exactly the words Cuomo would have uttered.